King Harald V of Norway has died at age 89 following a fight with a rare blood disorder, leaving a scandal-plagued crown to his son.
The king, the country’s first native-born monarch since the 14th century, died peacefully at 6:35 a.m. local time on Friday at Oslo’s national hospital. He was Europe’s oldest living monarch.
His son, now King Haakon VIII, takes over as monarch after serving as regent. Harald also leaves behind his wife of nearly 58 years, Queen Sonja, daughter Princess Märtha Louise, and six grandchildren.
Harald’s death caps years of mounting health scares. Hospitalized on Aug. 17, he received cortisone for hemolytic anemia, a rare condition that destroys red blood cells. That followed a 2003 bladder cancer surgery, a 2024 pacemaker fitting, and a Canary Islands hospitalization for an infection earlier that year.
“A whole nation is in mourning and the people of Norway are left with a deep sense of gratitude for a long life in the service of Norway,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said. “For more than three decades as monarch, Harald V demonstrated an unwavering faith in the Norwegian people. He helped us to see the best in ourselves — and in one another.”
Harald, at the age of 3, fled to the U.S. with his mother and sisters to escape the Nazi occupation of Norway, while his father and grandfather went into exile in the U.K.
After returning to Norway following the end of the war, he developed a love for sailing, representing his nation at the Olympics and winning world championship gold.
Harald was urged to marry a European noblewoman or princess, but refused—threatening to remain single forever unless his father allowed him to wed his school sweetheart, commoner Sonja Haraldsen. They tied the knot in 1968, and he took the throne in 1991 when his father, King Olav V, died.
He became a unifying force, comforting the nation after neo-Nazi Anders Breivik killed 77 people in 2011: “I can only imagine the depth of your pain. As King of this nation, I feel for each and every one of you.”
In 2016, he won praise by declaring Norwegians “believe in God, Allah, the Universe and nothing,” and are “girls who love girls, boys who love boys, and girls and boys who love each other.”
But his final year was marred by ugly family drama. Public support for the monarchy collapsed to 54 percent in February, down from 72 percent in 2024.
New Queen Mette-Marit’s 29-year-old son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, was sentenced in June to four years in prison on rape charges.
He faced four counts of rape involving four women between 2018 and 2024. A court heard that the women were allegedly asleep or severely incapacitated during the assaults, with one incident said to have occurred at the royal residence. He was also convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend Nora Haukland and filming another woman’s genitals without consent.
Høiby, who is appealing, visited the king’s bedside before he died.
Mette-Marit—who underwent a lung transplant in July for pulmonary fibrosis—also faced fierce backlash and criticism from Norway’s prime minister for “poor judgment” over a three-year friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, for which she offered her “deepest regret.”
She said she was conned by the well-connected financier. In a sit-down with public broadcaster NRK in March alongside her husband, then Crown Prince Haakon, she said, “I was manipulated and deceived. Of course, I wish I had never met him.”
Mette-Marit said she met Epstein through mutual friends in 2011, years after he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“He used the fact that we had a mutual friend, and that I’m gullible. I like to believe the best about people. But I also chose to end contact with him,” she told NRK.
In an October 2011 email exchange, Mette-Marit told Epstein that she Googled him and it “didn’t look too good : )”
In another thread dated November 2012, Mette-Marit told Epstein, “U are very charming u know,” and asked him, “Is it inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15 yr old sons wallpaper ?”
